


The Force of Ashes

by rekishi



Category: Malazan Book of the Fallen - Erikson
Genre: Book: The Bonehunters, Gen, Y'Ghatan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rekishi/pseuds/rekishi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>And so we weep for the fallen. We weep for those yet to fall, and in war the screams are loud and harsh and in peace the wail is so drawn-out we tell ourselves we hear nothing.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Force of Ashes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atheilen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atheilen/gifts).



Fiddler, formerly known as Strings, formerly known as Fiddler stood at the rail of the _Silanda_ and looked out over the water. He knew what he would see if he turned around now; his squad and Gesler's, arrayed up behind them on deck.

His squad. Bottle talking with his damned rats; Smiles honing the gleaming edges of her knives; Koryk rearranging his fetishes and Hood knew what purpose they served for the half-blood; Cuttle still mourning the loss of his munitions; Corabb and Tarr rolling knuckles over the damp planks. Fiddler still was rather certain a sapper should never be a sergeant. He would get all of those young marines killed sooner or later.

By rights, they should all be dead already. Like Truth.

In a way, they might all be dead already. When he looked into the eyes of his soldiers he could see burned out husks of the people they once were. The flames of Y'Ghatan, the mob on Malaz City - both had strained all of them to the breaking point. They were still holding on though, all of them, not to the Empire that had ousted them, Fiddler for the second time already, but for the Fourteenth, for the Bonehunters. They had their lives to live.

The fiddle was still strapped to his back. Still no more damage than the old damage. In the tenement room where Braven Tooth had lodged he had played for old friends, for Bridgeburners and the Chain of Dogs; for Ganoes Paran's little sister, for Pella and Truth, for other people he knew but by name. Next time, if there was to be a next time, he would play for Bonehunters again, for soldiers of his company, his legion. Names and faces he had looked into every day.

Fiddler gazed at the sky, the blurred and broken moon and wondered which of the gods would survive the war. If they, too, would stand before the ruins of a realm one day and wonder how they managed to emerge from there, where there was nothing left but ashes. Like the Bonehunters had.

Y'Ghatan lay behind them now, on another continent. Yet, in the eyes of every single one of them, there was a mirror of the burning city.


End file.
